The Hacker's Role
by Tigercry
Summary: I unknowingly helped make the game unhackable from the outside, and now I'm going to make up for my mistakes. I wasn't originally trapped in the game, but now? Now I'm the mystery that keeps players alive. I was a Beta Tester alongside my childhood friend 'the Rat,' and now I'm nicknamed 'the Hacker' or 'AI.' Why? Because to other players, I can't be killed so I will beat this game


"Argo wait!" Caylee tried to yank her hand away from the teleportation request even as Argo pushed her finger against the button. "You rat!" The fellow Beta Tester and Hacker snarled before she was surrounded by a blue light and vanished.

Argo then pulled out her friend list and checked where Caylee was. And her jaw dropped. "FLOOR EIGHTY-TWO?!" The blonde beta tester cursed so loudly that Kirito had to cover his ears to avoid going deaf. "I GET THE SAME ITEM AND TELEPORT TO FLOOR SIX, AND SHE GETS TO GO TO FLOOR EIGHTY-TWO?!"

"Luck from the system?" Kirito suggested with a shrug, "or maybe something relating to her hacking it? She did hack it for us all to try remember?"

"HACKED IT?!" Argo shook him by the shoulders, "FLOOR EIGHTY-TWO KIRITO! WE'RE NEVER GOING TO GET UP THERE! COME BACK HERE CASI!" She shouted at the sky in floor four, "YOU CHEATING HACKER!"

"Heeelp me!" A familiar voice screamed about ten minutes later while Kirito and Argo were sitting around waiting for her to come back. Argo had been muttering under her breath the entire time while Kirito was glancing at the fake and pretty much useless watch on his wrist.

Argo perked up at the sight of her friend and hauled her to her feet, stars in her eyes, "what did you see?" She demanded insistently, "tell me what you saw up there Casi!"

Caylee hauled herself to her feet and coughed out smoke. The beta tester was covered in soot, and ice, and had static electricity coming off of her. "YOU IDIOT!" She yelled at Argo and tackled her, nailing the smaller girl in the jaw as she yelled at her. "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID TO ME?! I HAD TO HACK A FIELD BOSS! A FIELD BOSS! AKIRA! I ALMOST DIED AND LOST MY STUFF BECAUSE YOU'RE AN IDIOT!"

The only thing that Argo registered was that Caylee saw a field boss. "A field boss?! What kind? What did it do? What did it specialize in? Come on! Tell me!"

Caylee got up, lifted Argo by the shoulders and shook her, "Are you even listening to me?!"

"Clearly has some sort of unseen magic, elements or something since you've been burned and frozen-"

"Argo! Listen to me!"

"Possibly a mage, maybe a wizard? And something very powerful to be on the eighty-second floor-"

"ARGO!" Caylee snapped and finally got her to stop talking, "his name was Merlin, I had to fight a massive giant with a sword who's special abilities constantly changed, and you're not even worried about me?!"

Argo snorted and shrugged, "You're a hacker Cas, it's not like you can't save your stuff to your Nervegear or whatever."

Caylee thought about it for a moment, dropped Argo, and smirked as she manipulated her menu. "Then I'm keeping this thing for life." A midnight purple cloak materialized around her body, the hood's shadow hiding most of her face while the cloak seemed to cast an unnatural shadow around the rest of her body. Only her ankles and feet could be seen clearly, everything else was incredibly hard to impossible to see. "It's the bonus, of which I siphoned. Because I wasn't going to leave the floor without a souvenir."

Argo gawked, "I want one!" SHe pointed at the teleport gate, "Go get me one tiger!" And shoved her toward the gate.

"Wait! There's only one -Argo!" The hacker vanished back to the high-level floor, only to reappear a moment later with half her stuff missing and a furious scowl on her face.  
"ARGO!" a group of crows flew off squawking at the strength of Caylee's yell.

* * *

 ** _After developing my OC character Caylee, Casi in game, and adapting her to SAO I figured it was finally time to create another little collection, but this one is centered around her and Argo mainly since Argo's her childhood friend :P If you haven't read my "Little Moments" Collection you may want to for background around Caylee, but it's not vital so you don't have to. The other characters are included in this collection a lot, just to make that clear. Caylee's pretty much my only SAO OC so she interacts with the main cast a lot, just under her nickname "The Hacker" and or "AI" because of how hard it is to see her face and body with her modded cloak for the most part._**

* * *

 _I Have to go in_

Caylee blinked at her computer screen for a moment, reading everything on the screen at a fast pace. SAO's a death game? Kyaba what did you do? The game had been amazing to beta test, and guilt settled in Caylee's stomach as she realized that she had helped to contribute to making the game so hard to get out of. At sixteen Caylee knew eight different computer languages and had even created her own, making it much harder to be traced when she hacked something or tested for bugs. SAO had been her favorite VRMORPG and she had enjoyed hacking the crap out of the game, even inserting her own code packages in hidden places that she could grab when she entered the actual game. However, she had also helped make it bug proof with little to no lag no matter the internet connection, meaning she had helped Kyaba trap them in the game. Her phone went off, buzzing violently and breaking her out of her focus. She blindly reached for it and managed to press the accept call button. Holding it up to her ear she spoke while she continued to read, scrolling down the webpage.

"Caylee!" Her friend Akira's _**(Akira's not an OC, it's just an unofficial real name for Argo)**_ voice was panicked and borderline terrified, "what the hey are we going to do?! Those newbies are gonna be dead within days!"

"I know, even us and Kirito didn't make it up all one-hundred floors," Caylee responded stiffly and glanced at her Nervegear lying tucked away in its box. "We barely got to floor ten before the Beta testing ended, and I didn't get to give Kirito access to the gear we hid in the game's coding so he's completely on his own."

"So what are we going to do?" Akira demanded, "we can't just stand by and watch!"

Caylee reached the bottom of the article and leaned back in her computer chair, "give me a few days, I'll figure out something, don't worry Akira. We'll help, I just have to set some stuff up for it to work. Plus I kinda have to convince Brody to let me dive into a literal death trap."

"You better convince him! I don't care how, but I can't be the Rat without my handy Hacker!"

Caylee laughed to diffuse the situation, "right, cause I make your job easier than a slice of pie. However, we have to keep us being Beta Testers a secret for now if we go into the game or people will _hate_ us. Especially me if they find out that I'm responsible for some of the anti-hacking countermeasures."

"Just you wait Kirito," Akira said in a forced excited tone, "we're going to get back in there and rescue you and anyone else you happen to befriend!"

"That's a huge promise Akira," Caylee chuckled, "Kirito draws girls toward him like a magnet, and everyone loves him despite how anti-social he is."

"You know, it's too bad you're practically promised to Brody, you and Kirito would make the funnies couple."

"Ugh, Caylee mock gagged, "let someone else deal with him for forever instead, I'd take Brody over him any day."

Akira genuinely laughed, "tell that to Kirito's face if we get through that game will you?"

"What, that I'd rather kiss my best friend than him?" Caylee said with a cheeky sounding smirk, "plus Brody's not a lanky excuse of a twig, unlike Kirito. He's actually muscular."

"So?" Akira giggled, "oh! I have a better idea! You have to kiss Kirito if he beats the game!"

Caylee actually gagged, "Yuck! And I'd be ruining my chance with Brody so no thank you!"

"Caylee's gonna kiss Kirito," Akira sang in an annoying voice, "you're gonna kiss Kirito!"

Caylee rolled her chocolate brown eyes, "in your dreams. I'm not kissing Kirito, or you, or any guy in SAO. Period."

"Auh," Akira pouted, "I will make you eat those words at some point," then her voice went serious. "Lets get in there and try to end the game, okay with you Casi?" She called Caylee by her in-game name, "me, you, Kii-boi, and whatever other girl Kirito finds interesting will be the four musketeers!"

"Argo," Caylee deadpanned with a slight smile, "it's three musketeers, not four."

"Nope, I will find Kirito a girl in that wretched game even if it's the last thing I do!"

Caylee lightly shook her head, "and here we go..."


End file.
